Kleo Ending, Explained: What is in the Red Suitcase?

Kleo End Explained: What’s in the Red Suitcase?

The Netflix thriller series Kleo is about Kleo Straub, an unofficial assassin working for the East German state security agency, also known as the Stasi, based in Berlin. After completing a high-profile mission, Kleo is unexpectedly imprisoned after being charged with crimes she didn’t commit. After German reunification, Kleo is released along with other political prisoners only to find out the truth behind her imprisonment and get revenge on the officers involved. Created by Hanno Hackfort, Bob Konrad and Richard Kropf, the German series captivates viewers with a captivating narrative that ends with startling revelations. If you want to dive deep into the same, let us be your ally!

Kleo Season 1 Summary

“Kleo” begins with Kleo Straub killing an unknown man as part of her mission at a disco bar called Big Eden. After Kleo leaves, West Germany officer Anne Geike takes a key from the dead man’s pocket to possess a red suitcase, which she sends to Chile. A few days later, Colonel Ludger Wieczorek receives orders to have Kleo imprisoned on fabricated charges. Her own grandfather, a high-ranking GDR official, Otto Straub, testifies against her. Kleo separates from her colleague and lover Andi Wolf, the father of her unborn child. In prison she suffers a miscarriage and is released after three years in the course of German reunification.

Kleo meets with Otto to find out why she was imprisoned. She gets no response from him and guns down her grandfather when he takes an empty gun to frighten her. Then she meets Andi, who tells her that Wieczorek, who died while she was in prison, was the person behind her imprisonment. She kills the judge who sentenced her. Kleo then meets Walter Blum, a party official who was involved in her imprisonment. She kills him and finds a photo of Wieczorek alive in Mallorca. The assassin then travels to Mallorca and kills Wieczorek, who informs her that Minister Erich Mielke was behind her imprisonment, before dying.

Meanwhile, a West German police officer named Sven Petzold, who saw Kleo killing the man in Big Eden, unofficially begins investigating them. A BND agent named Min Sun offers Sven a job at the agency if he solves Kleo’s Big Eden murder case for them by gaining the assassin’s trust. After Kleo kills Erich Mielke, she teams up with Sven to solve the mystery. Sven leads Kleo to Andi, who confesses to having tried to kill her. He reveals the involvement of a double agent and the suitcase that the murdered man had with him in their case. Comrade Ramona, posing as Andi’s wife Anja, kills her husband before he can reveal more.

Kleo and Sven find out that the double agent involved in the predicament is Anne Geike. The duo encounter her, only for the latter to attempt to kill them both. Anne accidentally catches fire and dies. The assassin deduces that the suitcase must be in Chile after Kleo and Sven unearthed an album full of pictures from that country. In one of Anne’s photo albums, they discover a picture of Jorge, an old friend of Kleo’s from Chile. In the meantime, Sven loses his police post because he got involved in the Big Eden case without permission. His wife Jenny betrays him by having an affair with his work colleague Frederick, further separating him from his family.

Will Kleo find the red suitcase in the Kleo Season 1 finale?

Yes, Kleo discovers the red bag. Kleo learns from Andi that the suitcase belonged to an officer in the East German army who wanted to send sensitive information to West Germany. Otto, Kleo’s grandfather, and Margot Honecker asked Anne for help in obtaining the trunk, and Margot then sent it to Chile for Jorge to secure with the help of Comrade Ramona. Sven gets a map with a marked location from Ramona’s room. He teams up with Kleo and the two discover the suitcase in a statue of Jesus and overtake Ramona, who is chasing them to get the suitcase.

The suitcase is stuffed with paperwork on the agreement between Honecker and Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States. West Germany, also known as Federal Republic of Germany, served as Reagan’s point of entry into Europe during the Cold War. This allowed the United States to influence European politics and oppose socialist East Germany and its ties to other communist countries. Reagan’s opposition to East Germany was the basis of America’s importance in Europe. Reagan wanted East Germany to be powerful enough to oppose and fight her in order to maintain her relevance and influence in European politics.

However, despite its financial problems, the GDR was a decisive opponent for the United States at the time. Reagan supported the county to continue serving as a “bogeyman” among European countries to justify US intervention. Army officer Kleo Kills wanted West Germany to get the documents so they could show how the capitalist and socialist countries worked together. Reagan provided the money without even informing Congress, so Kleo’s grandfather, Otto, and Honecker’s wife, Margot, had to keep the suitcase a secret.

Despite the fact that Kleo killed the army officer, she made things more complicated and gave opponents the opportunity to find the suitcase. Kleo is sentenced to death by East German officials for a mistake she didn’t even know was being made. Otto manages to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment, thus preventing the death of his granddaughter.

What motivates Min Sun to deliver the suitcase to America?

West German agent Min Sun takes possession of the suitcase with the help of Sven after Kleo and Sven successfully locate it. She gives the suitcase to the US in exchange for an unidentified package instead of giving it to her agency, the Federal Intelligence Service. In her opinion, Min is no longer interested in Germany. She has never received any respect from the nation or her intelligence community for her work or her potential. Worse, Anne gives Min the case, mistakenly believing Min can’t solve it.

The fact that Min’s boss, Anne, is involved in the same situation makes her realize that the leaders of the two nations only have their own interests in mind. After risking her life, Min doesn’t want to help such a nation or its leaders. It is beginning to move in the same direction as its officials, who are putting their own interests first by handing the suitcase to the US, which will benefit most. By covering up the fact that Reagan supported a socialist-communist country, America hopes to save face. The US will lose its allies in Europe if the Reagan-Honecker Pact documents become public knowledge.

As a result, Min and the United States come to an agreement, with Min getting what she wants in exchange. Even if the latter is kept secret, it could be the papers that get Min a place in one of the US agencies so she can flee Germany.

Why does Brigitte reject Kleo?

Margot Honecker meets Kleo after getting the suitcase and trades the whereabouts of her long-lost mother Brigitte, who fled to West Germany as a child, for the suitcase. When Kleo visits her mother, she abruptly shuts the door on her life in front of her daughter. Brigitte, who has constantly criticized her father Otto and East Germany’s communist values, believes that Kleo is nothing more than a by-product of East Germany’s heinous intentions and principles. Brigitte sees Kleo as an assassin trained to kill anyone who disagrees with the ideology of East Germany, to which she belongs.

The moment Otto took Kleo under his wing to train her as an assassin, Brigitte must have thought Kleo was dead. In her opinion, such a person should not come into her life again. Brigitte also leads a peaceful life with her son and may not want to invite a former East German spy into her life who has murdered people similar to hers because it could endanger her life.